"Common Sense" is all too often little more than a substitute for ignorance and prejudice. It rejects the carefully thought-out argument for instant thoughtless reactions. It is usually wrong.
UnCommon Sense tries to look at issues from a more complex and considered point of view. "Common Sense" is simplistic, UnCommon Sense is deals with the the world as far more complex than many would have us believe.

Monday, 4 February 2013

Fernanda Milan: Activism Works!

“The most common way people give up their
power is by thinking they don’t have any.” Said
Alice Walker, that has always been something activists bear in mind when they
work for change.

On the 14th of August last year,
a Swedish friend of mine posted a newspaper article about a Guatemalan trans
woman who had been through a terrible ordeal trying to seek asylum in Denmark
from persecution in her home country.
After I read it, I felt so angry that the Danish Asylum Board had
decided to send this woman, Fernanda Milan, back to Guatemala, on the 17th
of September, barely 5 weeks later, so I decided to translate
the article into English and it was picked up by the LGBT Press around the
world, even being retranslated into Spanish.

Various forms of activism both online,
offline, through personal contacts using the new technology of social
networking, the old technology of email, and positively antediluvian technology
of the telephone, took place during that time. There were demonstrations in Copenhagen, in
Madrid and here in London. The demonstration we held outside the Danish Embassy
in Knightsbridge was effective. Denmark doesn’t get many demonstrations outside
its embassies; indeed the last one anyone can remember was Muslims
demonstrating against cartoons in a Danish newspaper in 2006. Our
demonstration made it into EkstraBladet, the largest circulation tabloid in
Denmark.

At the eleventh hour a message was received
that the Danish Asylum Review Board had decided to grant Fernanda a stay of
execution. Her case was reexamined and new representations were made.
Information was collected from studies by the UN, the Organisation of American
States and Oasis, the LGBT rights organization for which Fernanda had worked in
Guatemala. They all confirmed how trans people in Guatemala are systematically
murdered, and that Fernanda herself had had death threats from the police.

A few weeks later the Danish Asylum Board
announced that it would now recognise as valid reasons for seeking asylum, persecution
on the grounds of gender identity and sexual orientation. A couple of weeks
after that on the 27th November, they granted Fernanda Milan
permanent leave to remain in Denmark, protected under the UN refugee
convention.

The support organization, hastily put
together in Denmark, called T-Refugee Project, to support her was, of course
very happy with this result but they were still angry. In answer to why they
are only announcing her victory today Stine Larsen of the T-Refugee Project
said;

"We are
very relieved that our struggle, together with Fernanda, ended in her being
granted asylum. But it has been a soul-destroying asylum process with an
initial refusal which was then reversed just three days before her scheduled
deportation on 17 September 2012. Fernanda has needed time and space to recover
from this ordeal. That's why we are only publicising the good news now."

Fernanda added; "I am very grateful to
all the people who have helped me to fight, because in the end I could not have
done it on my own."

Activism works, solidarity works. Trans
people are now able to obtain asylum in Denmark, but the story does not end
there. The reason Fernanda had problems was that she arrived and claimed asylum
in one of the three countries that had opted out of the EU agreement to
recognize persecution on the grounds of gender identity as a valid reason to
claim asylum. The two other countries to
opt out of this agreement are the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.
So far the UK government seems to have made no clear declaration either way on
the issue of trans refugees. It is time they clarified their position.

If Fernanda Milan had been deported to
Guatemala on the 17th September, it is highly likely she would have
been one of the 265 names we read out at the Transgender Day of Remembrance ceremony
on Nov 20th. There are no
transgender people in Guatemala over the age of 35, they are all murdered by
then, either by vigilantes, the police or because, excluded from education or
work, they have to resort to sex work, which puts them in vulnerable positions.
In the 6 weeks leading up to the 17th September there were four
recorded murders of trans people in Guatemala, in a population only around one
and a half times the size of London. With the Guatemalan police looking for
her, there is little doubt that by now she would have been a charred or
dismembered corpse in a remote roadside ditch. Instead she is alive. She is
only alive because of activism by trans people and their supporters.

It looks like the
activism is not going to end there; the last word on this from Fernanda;

”I have been a transgender person all my life. And I have been fighting
against prejudice as long as I remember. I had to flee from Guatemala because I
was fighting for human rights. Now I have the chance to live my life as a woman
and an activist. Now I want to keep on the fight for a better world, where
everybody can be educated, work, create families and live a dignifying life
regardless of their gender identity,”